Spanish Meatballs & Yellow Rice

Let me start my first cooking review by explaining that the first time I cook something, I FOLLOW THE RECIPE, unless it takes longer than I suspected. So, last night I cooked some Albondigas y Arroz de Adorno aka Meatballs and Yellow Rice w/ Peas. It's from a Spanish cookbook my cuz got for me called 1080 Recipes by Simone and Ines Ortega.

The Good: The recipe didn't call for many ingredients - I already had most of the stuff in my kitchen. It's definitely budget-friendly. If you let it marinate in the sauce and cook slowly, the flavors of the saffron, onions and tomatoes really comes to life - it's quite tasty!
The Bad: It took me AT LEAST 2 hours to cook it, AND I took some shortcuts.

Here's a pic of the final dish.

Here's the recipe for the meatballs:
1 lb 2 oz ground beef *I always get the ground beef w/ the least amount of fat
1 sprig fresh parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, very finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons bread crumbs *I just used an of a whole wheat bread loaf - HOLLA!
3 tablespoons white wine
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sunflower oil
Salt

Sauce:
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
small pinch of saffron threads *Can be found in the spices section, you press/grind it, pour some water in it and it turns yellow :)
Salt

The rice called for long grain rice, a small pinch of saffron, 3 tbsps butter and 1 cup of peas. I would type out all of the dreadful details to cook this, but I doubt most people may want to replicate. So email me if you want a copy of the recipe. All-in-all, I will only cook this again on a weekend.